Dilute nitride based III–V alloys for laser and solar cell applications

The dilute nitrogen alloy GaAs1−xNx is of recent technological importance for high efficiency solar cells and vertical cavity surface emitting diode lasers used in fiber optic communications. The giant band gap lowering and the abnormal effective mass phenomena observed in this material have been extensively researched. There exist many inconsistencies between the results of various theoretical models and experimental techniques used to probe the above phenomena. It appears that these arise because GaAs1−xNx should be viewed not as an abnormal alloy but rather as a heavy isoelectronically doped semiconductor.